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Feature Articles - The Zimmermann Telegram

By Charles F. Horne, commentary published in Volume 5 of Source Records of the Great War

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Time clears our perspective
upon many matters.

The Zimmermann note was
an
official letter sent secretly by
Zimmermann, Germany's
Secretary of Foreign Affairs, to her Minister in Mexico, directing him to
attempt to unite Mexico and Japan with Germany in war against the United
States.

This document was captured
by the United States secret service upon the Texas border, and was disclosed
to the American public on February 28th, at the height of the brief interval
of indignation and uncertainty between America's breaking of diplomatic
relations and her declaring war.

Thus revealed, the note had
a profound psychological effect. More than anything else, it hardened
the peace-loving American people to the conviction that war with Germany
was an absolutely necessary step.

Many Americans regarded the
note as another piece of German treachery, like the blowing up of their
factories and placing bombs upon their ships; and they voiced their renewed
anger against the false foe who encouraged secret murder while wearing the
mask of peace.

Today, however, most
statesmen would agree that the note lay well within Germany's rights.
It expressly stated that the alliance against the United States was only to
be attempted if and after the fact was certain that there was to be "an
outbreak of war".

The deeper influence of the
note upon Americans, therefore, depended not so much upon its evidence of
Germany's evil methods of attack, but upon its revelation that she had no
intention whatever of limiting her U-boat warfare so as to placate them.
She had "counted the cost".

If she could coax or
frighten them into submitting to this U-boat destruction, good; if not, she
meant to fight. Of America's backing down from the
diplomatic stand of 1916,
with all its background of American patience and German violence and
subterfuge, there was no possibility whatever.

Americans knew that surely;
though Germany apparently did not, Hence the Zimmermann note told them that
the war, the Great War, had come to them at last.

What strikes one most about
the Zimmermann note today is not its perfidy, but its folly, its utter folly
and futility. Mexico knew well that no German ship, no aid in men or
in munitions, could possibly reach her. She delighted much in annoying
the United States; but what chance was there that she would deliberately
invite destruction by declaring war to oblige Germany?

Or, even if we conceive
Mexico guilty of such murderous madness, what effect could it have upon the
United States beyond the holding of a few thousand troops upon the southern
border, while the rest of the nation turned with increased anger and
determination to Germany's overthrow?

When to this we add the
absurdity of supposing that Mexico could at all sway the policy of Japan,
the Zimmermann note becomes so monumental a stupidity that many men did not
believe it could possibly be genuine, until Herr Zimmermann himself
acknowledged it.

It would seem more logical
to assume that Germany meant the note for just what it achieved, meant it,
that is, to be revealed and thus to confirm America's intent for war.

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Saturday, 22 August, 2009Charles F. Horne

The "Blue Max" was a reference to the prestigious German Pour le Merite medal.